


Prologue Arc

by ParaParano



Series: Serai: In Living Memory [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Barracks, Character(s) of Color, Fantasy, Knights - Freeform, Serai, trainees
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-19
Updated: 2017-11-19
Packaged: 2018-11-02 15:39:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10947540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ParaParano/pseuds/ParaParano
Summary: Mizuki Shiro dreams of following in his father’s footsteps and achieving knighthood. After years of training in the barracks, and fighting alongside Serai Kingdom’s military to defend their lands from barbarians, Mizuki at last has his chance. Upon Princess Delaria's thirteenth birthday, she is eligible of siring a Royal Knight of her own, to serve as her bodyguard. At a time when their kingdom is threatened by barbaric and royal forces alike, the sole heir to the Seraian throne must be protected on her journey to meet her prince.However, in the Kingdom of Serai, traditional law is paramount, and the Knightly Law of Sacrifice is still upheld: when a monarch dies, their Royal Knight must also be put to death, so their soul may follow them and protect them in the afterlife. And the princess’ weak heart is a threat not only to her own life, but her knight’s as well.





	1. Moonlight

_Serai Kingdom, Brackenshire County, the Eastern Barracks._

 

Michael Smith had always preferred the nighttime, when the world was quiet, distractions were few, and the moon was high in the sky.

It wasn’t until the sun was set that he could feel at his most energetic, and he could be left to concentrate on whatever project he had set himself to. That night, the moon was so close, and so close to full, it provided the warehouse with enough moonlight that Michael had no need of a torch. Even hours after sunset, when his fellow trainees lay abed, he was working tirelessly, and dreaming of the day he might be tasked with a duty far more important than chopping firewood.

The warehouse was cold and damp, and wasn’t much better in the daytime. There was a nasty chill in here, and a draft that was exacerbated by the biting October winds. The building wasn’t at all suited for food storage, so it was instead used to stock spare weapons and armour. The walls were covered from top to bottom with weapon racks, piled high with swords, spears, axes, bows, knives, plate armour and shields, none of which were in great condition. Most were old and worn, scratched and cracked, and rusting over from lack of use. They were accompanied by groups of broken training dummies, all of them in varying states of decay, and crate upon crate of arrows, crossbow bolts, armour plates, hay bales (the horses weren’t keen on damp hay, but it was the best they got), and at the very back, an entire tree’s worth of rough, unchopped logs. This was the exact problem that Michael had set out to fix.

The warehouses stood on the far side of the Eastern Barracks’ grounds, far enough away from the sleeping quarters that even the sounds of the other trainees’ cacophonous snores couldn’t reach Michael’s ears. The silence was only interrupted only by the rhythmic thok sounds of his axe connecting with the firewood. Unabated by distractions, his thoughts wandered, drifting to the subject that so often occupied his mind: his dream of achieving knighthood.

Michael had lived in the Eastern Seraian Barracks for most of his young life. He spent his days training, serving his superiors, and on occasion, fighting alongside the Seraian army, to defend their borders from attack. But he was always awaiting his next chance to be of use to his knight.

Unfortunately for Michael, the Royal Knights, who served at their monarch’s side at all times, were more concerned with defending the royal family than they were with raising squires. The last time Michael’s knight had come to the barracks seeking his squire’s aid had been three months ago, and his visits were getting fewer and father between. This was something that irritated Michael to no end. How was he supposed to prove his worthiness as a candidate for knighthood if his knight was too busy to even pay him a visit?

Michael had lost count of the attempts he had made to persuade the knight to let him stay with him, at his side, where he would be of far better use to him. The more time he spent training under the knight’s guidance, the sooner he could be of worth to his kingdom’s military. But the response was always the same. Always firm, always even-tempered, and always “no”.

“This is the only place for you, son,” Sir Romanenkov had said to him in his thick accent. “Just for now. Just until I can find something else for you. Have patience until then.”

Three years had passed since they’d had that conversation.

Michael lined up another piece of firewood, and brought his axe down upon it with a little more vengeance. Perhaps too much, as his strike sent one half of the log spinning off into the shadows.

With an irritated sigh, Michael set his axe temporarily aside, and went in search of the discarded wood. His workbench was brightly lit by a moonbeam, but the rest of the warehouse was cast in shadow, and it was there that the log had scurried off to. Even as he blinked into the darkness, waiting for his eyes to adjust, he could barely see a foot in front of him. He was forced to rely less on his sight and more on the hope that his foot might accidentally collide with the lost firewood.

He searched the shadows like this, but was having little luck, and his eyes became ever more drawn to the moonlight, as it poured down in streaks from the cracks in the roof and the rafters. Amidst the glow, there was a singular beam that shone brighter than the others. It cut through the shadows, and landed upon a sword, a singular sheathed blade propped up against a storage box, as though it were pulling the light towards it.

Before he could get too sidetracked, Michael found the firewood - or rather, his boot did, as he accidentally kicked it and sent it clattering across the floor. He bent down and patted his fingertips against the stone ground, until they found wood. He hoped that this particular log would burn far better than most. It was the least it could do for all the trouble it had given him.

He made his way back to the workbench, intending to go immediately back to his work. Instead, he turned to look at the sword again. Its dull slightly curved scabbard, the tempered steel of the hilt wrapped tightly in tattered cloth. So very unlike any of the other swords stored in this warehouse. The range of weapons available for the trainees was by no means meagre: the selection ranged from light and tiny daggers, to chipped but trusty one-handed swords, to hefty and intimidating broadswords. Those unskilled in the art of swordsmanship had the choice of taking up an axe, or a glaive, or a longbow, if that better suited them. But there was not a single blade in the barracks quite like this one. It was utterly unmistakable.

Michael had been this sword’s owner for as long as he could remember, but he had never known it to catch the moonlight with such concentrated intensity.

He told himself it had been a trick of the light, and went back to his chopping bench. He picked up the other less adventurous log, and threw them both into the pile with the rest of their bifurcated brethren.

Once the firewood was prepared for the following day, and all of his tools had been put back in their rightful place, Michael returned to collect his sword with his head held high, satisfied with a job well done and another night put to good use. But, before he could leave the building, a thought stopped him. Perhaps the day was not quite over yet.

Life in the barracks meant that privacy was a rarity, not a given. At breakfast, at work, at play, at training, at rest, there would be someone demanding his attention, or poking their nose into his business. Michael shot a look at a set of bows hung on a nearby wall, disdain painting his features as they brought back an irritating memory. His archery skills were, in his opinion, abysmal: something that came as a surprise to his tutors, who so often praised his focused, accurate sword strikes. This was not something that perturbed him; Michael had no interest in pursuing archery. He was certain he didn’t have the same flair for the bow as he did with the sword. He had been unable to replicate his precise swordplay in his archery, thanks in no small part to his fellow trainees’ propensity for shouting and jeering at him just as he was lining up his shot. They were lucky he’d hit the target at all, and had not aimed for their faces instead.

Not that Michael was unused to receiving such treatment from the other trainees. They had never quite seen eye to eye, on many matters. Such as his preferred choice of weapon.

He gripped the sword in his hand a little tighter. He couldn’t possibly waste this opportunity to practice in private, undeterred by his peers.

A short while later, Michael was stepping back from a readied training dummy, strategically positioned right where the moonlight would catch it. This particular mannequin was well-used; countless cuts and notches peppered its worn wooden limbs, and had all but destroyed the old flaking paint that marked its weak spots. Even the frown carved into its crude face failed to convey any kind of menace.

He admired his handiwork, checking to make sure the dummy had the strength to hold the sword and shield he’d given it, and ultimately decided he was still unsatisfied. He reached across, holding the scabbard of his blade at length, and used the heel to bump the dummy’s arm up a notch. These models had not been assembled with the greatest care, and the slight disturbance was enough to shake the dummy’s entire arm. It gestured as though it were waving its weapon menacingly in Michael’s direction. At this, a smile came unbidden to his lips.

Playing along, he knocked his head back and set his jaw, as though he were offended by the most uncouth manner the dummy had used to challenge him with.

“‘Do you raise your blade to me, sir?’”

It was a quote from a story book he’d read, about a valiant soldier’s battle against a kingdom that had turned its back on him. Though the words were not his own, hearing them spoken in his own voice filled him with determination.

The dummy was, of course, unresponsive. Michael was unperturbed.

“‘You do,’” he said.

The dummy had not moved.

“‘But you must know…’”

He set a firm grip upon the hilt of his sword. It fit his palm as though it had been made to be held by his hands. In one swift motion, he drew the sword high, slicing a sharp arc over his head, to point the single-sided blade at this foe.

“‘A knight cannot refuse a challenge.’”

The dummy appeared nonplussed, but Michael liked to think that, had it been a living breathing thing, it would currently be fearing for its life.

But there was no going back now: the challenge was issued, and their duel must begin.

Michael was nothing if not a devoted student, so he initiated the battle the way he had been taught to: with the honourable Seraian salute. Clapping his ankles together, he straightened his back and shoulders, head held high as he brought his flattened palm down upon his heart. Then he bowed deeply. He righted himself with a flourish, and with that, the games were over.

He charged towards the dummy, strafing from side to side as he went, dodging his opponent’s imaginary attacks as he honed in on its weak spots. Footwork was his strongest asset, and he put it to good use during training. He would catch himself on the balls of his feet every time he changed direction, so not a single step would lose momentum. He didn’t set a foot wrong, yet he still wasn’t satisfied. Michael told himself he should be focusing on improving his weaknesses instead of reveling in his strengths. He was so confident in his footwork he could dance circles around his peers and his enemies; not one of his fellow trainees could get a hand on him, no matter how hard they tried. And they _did_ try.

When he wasn’t dodging imaginary attacks from the dummy’s sword, he was landing accurate blows on the weak spot targets on its chest, shoulders and head. But he had a nasty habit of leaving himself open to attack during his parries, and he was fully aware of his shortcomings. He made a sharp turn, evading another non-existent swipe at his face, and attempted to correct himself by bringing his shield closer to his chest. That solved his defence problem, but he still hadn’t managed to land a strike of his own. The voice of his teacher was in his head, chiding him for his mistakes.

“Michael!” Sir Leon would yell. “Keep your wits about you, lad! Had this been a _real_ fight, you’d have lost both your legs by now! Stop prancing about and bloody hit him!”

Frustration flooded his chest; it took hold of his sword arm and raised his weapon high. The blade cast a shadow upon Michael’s foe as it pierced the moonbeams above him. He prepared to bring the weapon down hard upon the dummy’s chest target, more concerned with attaining catharsis than he was with keeping the mannequin in one piece.

Luckily, he noticed the bright lights sparking from his sword before the glowing blade could make contact.

“Oh! Woah _woah_!”

He leapt back, all malice gone from his wide eyes, so surprised that he lost his grip on the hilt and tossed it back and forth between his palms like a hot potato. Once the initial shock was over, he gripped the hilt firm in both hands, arms out straight like he were trying to ward off a wild animal. But it wasn’t biting back. The hilt was cool to the touch, and the sparks had stopped. And most peculiar of all, the light was entirely gone from the sword’s silver blade.

Michael glared at the sword as though it had personally offended him.

“ _How_?” he huffed as he turned the weapon over in his hands, bringing it up close to his eyes to inspect it proper. “How does this keep happening…?”

His search yielded no results. No heat, no marks, not so much as a flicker of life or light. Not even a good shake could bring a reaction out of it. The blade was entirely inert, obedient, and still reluctant to explain its erratic propensity for setting itself alight.

Relenting, Michael let his arm flop to his side, sighing as he passed a hand across his face, his head heavy with the burden of unanswered questions. When he removed his palm, his eyes were met once again with the training dummy, standing undefeated with its far more obedient weapon held high. Its face looked downright smug now.

Far too proud to leave their sparring match undecided, Michael collected himself, readied his stance, and lunged at his target again. He wasn’t messing around this time; foregoing footwork practice in favour of brute strength, Michael drew back his sword and struck the dummy’s centre target without restraint. It span and rattled violently upon its pivot, its balance thrown by the hefty shield and sword strapped to its arms, and it tottered helplessly before it gave way to gravity’s pull. With a defeated creak, it fell to the floor.

Michael sheathed his blade, grinning. He may not have been any closer to discovering the truth about his sparking sword, but he was at least pleased he got to have the last word.


	2. Smoke

_Serai Kingdom, Brackenshire County, the Eastern Barracks._

Satisfied with a job well done, and a dummy well vanquished, Michael left the warehouse and headed back to his quarters with a spring in his step. His day had been a productive one, and he was content now to retire to bed, and rise early again in the morning. His battle with the dummy had likely cost him a few extra minutes of sleep, but getting out of bed in time to be the first to arrive at the mess hall, when the food was still plenty and the bread was still fresh, was always worth a slight bit of grogginess.

He slung the strap of his scabbard over his back, and kicked a stone out of his way. Moonlight guided his every step as he crossed the stone path leading from the warehouses to the trainee accommodation block.

When the kingdom’s need for new military trainees had increased, so had the need for adequate housing. And it had to be done quick. The Northern and Western Barracks were best equipped to handle this shortage, but the Eastern Barracks, the smallest of the four, did not have the space to accommodate. Buildings were erected in every available field, from the warehouses all the way to the southern wall, until they became indistinguishable from one another. And it still wasn’t enough. The architects were forced to come up with a more creative solution. When there was no room left to expand on the ground, the only way to go was up.

The result was a hodgepodge of precariously placed materials and poor planning. The towers stretched their snaking bodies into the night sky, standing proud in bold defiance of architecture. What had started as a humble stone house had transformed into a structural nightmare, a patchwork of brick and mortar, as more and more rooms had been slapped on to its yielding structure. The internal layout had been twisted into a series of uneven tunnels. They were so difficult to navigate that building connecting stairwells between each floor had become an impossibility. Trainees had resorted to knocking down walls, slinging rope ladders from windows, and creating crawlspaces in the ceilings and floors to gain access to adjacent rooms. It was eventually decided that the stairs should be built on the outside of the towers instead. This took the tedium out of navigating the flats, but trainees would climb them at their own peril.

With a practiced jump, Michael hopped up onto the first foothold, and began his ascent.

He had quite a ways to climb. His room was situated at the very top, teetering at the precipice of the tower, overlooking all the others. Michael saw this as a mixed blessing. One the one hand, it gave him a wonderful view of the horizon. He knew of no better place to watch the sunsets and the sunrises, and he could see all the way to the capital city from the comfort of his bed. But on the other hand, there were no stairs leading to his room. Plans for building extra stairwells had been abandoned several floors below. The only door leading out of his room opened directly onto a rooftop, and he was completely reliant on hanging ropes and the external stairwell to get down from there. If he wanted to take anything heavy up to his room, like a chair or a stack of books, he would have to make use of the pulley system the trainees had attached to the side of the building.

It hadn’t escaped Michael’s notice that he had been housed in the room that sat at the greatest distance away from all the others. He wasted none of his time dwelling on whether or not this had been a deliberate decision on his superiors’ part.

He was sure it had been.

He climbed with practiced ease. The stairway ended at a rooftop, which lead to a rope ladder, the ladder to a doorway, to an arch that lead to another roof. He crossed a bridge made of only a single wooden plank nailed to a wall and a windowsill. Just beyond the window pane, a group of trainees were deep in slumber, piled into bunk-beds and hammocks. One had fallen from his mattress and had landed with his face and tongue pressed right up against the window. Michael was sure to tread lightly as he passed by. He had incurred the wrath of sleep-deprived soldiers once before, and never again since, for he had no desire to spend another night locked in the stables.

He escaped without incident, and continued his ascent until he ran out of stairs to climb. He allowed himself a moment of pause while he caught his breath; he would need it for the last leg of his journey, where he would walk across another preciously placed beam, clamber up a ladder with three broken rungs, scale a steep roof, avoid the overprotective mother gull that made her nest at its precipice, climb a rope, throw himself through his open window and finally tumble onto his mattress and promptly fall asleep.

His gaze strayed to the moon. Though it wasn’t quite full, it still shone with such brilliance it illuminated all Michael could see, from the towers to the walls to the fields beyond. And beyond that lied the silhouette of the capital city, which glowed with its own luminescence, as though it had no need nor want of the moon’s guiding light.

A moonbeam caught Michael’s hand, and warmed his skin with a touch more soothing than any sunbeam had ever offered him. His breathing calmed, and a smile came unbidden to his lips.

He sat, just to enjoy the moonlight, just for a while. He had time.

He thought of his father. As he so often did.

He thought of his toothy grins, his booming laughter, his broad and calloused yet gentle hands. He remembered those hands wrapped around the hilt of a sword, demonstrating to him how to grip it properly. He remembered the day his father’s knighthood was announced, and how the barracks had rejoiced for their comrade’s success.

He remembered the day he left.

Michael had watched his departure from the guard towers. He wasn’t supposed to be up there, for he wasn’t a guardsman, not even a squire yet, but no one had the heart to remove him. He watched his father’s carriage roll away, until it was only a speck on the horizon, until it was swallowed up by the capital city and its burning sunrise. The carriage that took his father from him was emblazoned with the Seraian insignia, a searing golden sun breaking over a hill, like a lock on a wooden casket. It had sealed him away, and now he was their possession, and would be forevermore.

He looked to the moon, and wondered if his father was looking at it too.

There was something on the horizon. Something dark, something grim, sliding languidly into Michael’s peripheral vision.

His blood turned cold at the sight.

He should have reacted. He knew that. His first response should have been to alert the other trainees, and to prepare himself for battle. Instead, it brought forth a memory.

_“Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”_

Sir Romanenkov had taught him that phrase many years ago, back when he was still too small to even pick up a sword. It had happened on a snowy winter’s eve, when it felt as though the entire kingdom been engulfed in white and dark and cold. He remembered the inviting glow from the kitchen window, which to him looked all the world like a lighthouse beacon, signalling the end of their perilous journey all the way from their sleeping quarters.

This was when Michael heard his father recite the saying. It confused him at first, for there was no smoke, only steam mingling with the inviting light, and there was no fire, only the meagre yet appetising soup that the steam was rising from.

Ever since then, whenever Michael heard the phrase “where there’s smoke there’s fire”, he thought: “Lunchtime!”

As he grew older, he’d come to doubt that his definition of the phrase had been correct.

And when he caught sight of the thick plumes of black smoke spilling into the night sky, he felt he was finally starting to understand what it really meant.

Barbarians. An army of them.

Not that a barbarian army was particularly intimidating. Not when compared to the standards of the Serai Kingdom’s military. Even the limited numbers of the Eastern Barracks’ battalions vastly outnumbered theirs. Michael hadn’t even noticed them until they were over the hill. He had mistaken the smoke rising from their torches for clouds, their racket for the barracks windmill, until their fire broke over the horizon. This was a sight unmistakable to Michael. Their lack of formation, their patchwork armour, their down-turned faces. They came armed with pikes, axes, rakes, shovels and knives. Anything they could get their hands on Michael couldn’t make out the minutia of their weapons from where he stood, but he already knew their equipment would be in poor condition. Their health wouldn’t be much better.

There was something else. Something far more alarming. A low rumbling, like a rising omen, a dark undercurrent slowly surfacing. The sound of earth being crushed, of grinding gears, of screaming wood: the warning call of dreadful machinery crawling ever closer.

The firing mechanism came into view first. The counterweight, the beam, then the frame in its entirety. The trebuchet trundled clumsily over hill, dragged and pulled by starving horses and starving men, its creaky wheels crying with the effort. Its twin followed reluctantly behind.  

Both were emblazoned with the royal Seraian insignia.

“Oh no,” Michael said, his voice barely above a whisper. He wasn’t aware he was voicing his thoughts out loud until they hit his ears. “No, no, _no_ , not _again_!”

He scurried to the edge of the roof to get a better look at them, and the view didn not improve. Their numbers were few, their battalions (if they could even be called that) were in complete disarray, and less than half of them looked properly equipped for battle. They looked more like a mob of angry townspeople than an army preparing to lay siege to an enemy barracks.

“What are you doing?” he cried out to them, dismayed, knowing full well they couldn’t hear him, but hoping for it all the same. “Why do you keep coming back?!”

The barbarians pressed on, and did not reply.

“Oi!”

A window behind him crashed against the wall as it was swung open, making Michael jump in surprise. A trainee was leaning out of the frame, still half-asleep, his eyes barely open even as they glared in Michael’s direction. If he hadn’t been holding onto the window, he would have fallen right out.

“Wass’all the ruckus about?” he slurred, and Michael recognised his country accent and balding head as belonging to a man named Brion. “I’m tryin’ to sleep!”

Michael felt instant regret. The vision of another night spent in the stables flashed before his eyes, and filled him with more dread than even the barbarians had.

“Nothing!” he said, and couldn’t speak fast enough. “Sorry! Nothing’s happening- go back to bed!”

But his attempts to calm Brion were in vain. He couldn’t rightly convince him that what he was seeing with his own wide eyes wasn’t real.

“Hold on. What’s that? Izzat _smoke_?”

“Um! No! Just a cloud - a raincloud - a storm’s coming-”

“Will you lot _shut up_?!”

Another disturbed trainee appeared, emerging from behind a wooden latch in a crawlspace two floors higher. Michael didn’t even get a chance to plead for him to return to his slumber before Brion butted in.

“Hey Rob, look!” he shouted, waving a pointed finger at the horizon. “Look at that over there! Don’t that look like smoke to you?”

“Eh?” Robert blinked his still bleary eyes at the horizon. When that didn’t work, he rubbed them both with the back of his sleeve, and tried again. Michael watched as the colour drained from his face. “Oh- Jesus _Christ_!”

“Yeah! Can you see where it’s coming from?” Brion asked.

“Don’t!” Michael blurted out before thinking, and the single demanding syllable earned him a pair of filthy looks. Shrinking under their glares, he wracked his brain for a better idea, one that would look far less peculiar to his peers.

“Don’t, uh, trouble yourselves!” he stammered, backing up his unconvincing gesture of selflessness with an equally unconvincing smile. “ _I’ll_ deal with it, so you two can stop worrying about it and _go back to sleep_ -”

It hadn’t taken long for Robert to lose interest in Michael’s ramblings, and he identified the true source of the smog almost immediately, and with great horror.

“Holy shit! It’s a barbarian army! They’re coming this way!”

“Wot?!”

“Yeh! There’s at least a hundred of ‘em!”

The jig was up before it had even began. Kicking himself inwardly, and outwardly smacking a hand on his face, Michael could only watch as the bad news spread like wildfire throughout the towers. Like a hundred rickety cuckoo-clocks, windows and doors from each and every block popped open, and out sprang the gormless faces of Michael’s fellow trainees, gawking at the smoky sky, all in a fuss over the approaching danger.

“You’re jokin’!”

“He’s right- look!”

“They’re already over the hill!”

“Are we gonna have to fight them?”

“Ugh, I can’t, I’m too hungover!”

“Speak for yerself, mate, I’m still pissed!”

That last one was followed by a proud guffaw. Somehow, that reaction irritated Michael even more than his own blunder.

“Calm it down!”

A sharp voice called from above, cutting through the commotion and taking command of it. Every face turned to look in its direction, its sharp cadence and nasally tone instantly recognisable to all of them. Kale was leaning out of a window frame, one foot on the sill and his eyes set on the horizon. His scraggly hair was blowing in the wind, his clothes billowed about his scrawny arms, and the moonlight reflected off of his bald spot.

“Prepare yourselves for battle, lads!” he said, grinning heroically, despite how it made his already patchy beard appear even more barren. “We haven’t had a good fight in a while! Someone hurry up and sound the alarm!”

“I’ll do it!” Robert volunteered, but Brion stopped him before he could run off.

“Hold on,” he said, “shouldn’t someone at the wall have done that alrea-”

As if on cue, the night was filled with the raucous screams of blowing horns. First from the southern wall, then from the east, until the uproarious clamouring came together and rose into a tumultuous disharmony. Michael couldn’t hear the approaching trebuchets anymore, couldn’t hear the voices of his peers, couldn’t hear himself think, and he knew his chance to act was gone.

A repetitive thumping dispersed the noise. Kale was smacking the wall of the building, excitement in his gaping grin.

“That’s the Call to Arms, boys!” he said. “Come on, look lively! If we don’t get to the armoury within ten minutes, Sir Leon will put us all on mucking duty again! And you won’t catch me dead doing that: I already put up with enough shit from you lot as it is!”

“Back at ya, Kale!”

“Move it! Oi, and don’t let any barbs past the gate this time-”

“Stop!”

The word tore itself out of Michael’s throat before he could choke it down. It drew the attention of every man within earshot. All eyes were on him, their mumbling and murmuring bubbling up from under the hubbub, and what scant confidence Michael had summoned was gone in an instant. He felt the pressure of their expectant stares, like a great weight settling on his shoulders, as though gravity itself was trying to pull him through the floor. But he stood firm.

He set his jaw, and spoke his mind.

“Why are we doing this again?” he said, with an indignant shrug of his arms. “You lot can’t be serious. It’s an unfair fight, you _know_ it is!”

Even from two floors below him, Michael could hear Brion mutter under his breath: “Oh not _this_ again-”

“What do you mean ‘unfair’?” Robert said, the first to retort. “Didn’t you see those trebuchets they have with ’em?”

“What, you mean those trebuchets that look exactly like the ones _we’ve got_?”

Without looking, Michael gestured to the warehouses, and the Barracks’ impressive range of siege weapons stationed nearby. It only took a glance to discern the staggering differences between the Seraian trainee army and the barbarians. The southern wall, standing taller than even their catapults, was lined with cannons and manned archery towers, the largest of which were stationed either side of the southern wall’s only exit: a robust drawbridge, held shut by steel chains. From between the crinolines, men could be seen running from post to post, hurriedly lighting torches and delivering full quivers to the awaiting archers. On the ground, horses were being lead from their stables in droves. Not all of the soldiers’ mounts were adequately trained for battle, but they were in far better condition than the handful of gaunt pack mules the barbarians had brought with them. And, though their selection of  weaponry was not as broad or well-forged as what would be afforded to the Northern Barracks’ trainees, it would be more than enough to topple an army of villagers armed with pitchforks.

The contrast of strength between the two armies was wider than the fields between the barracks and the capital city. The barbarians marched on, crossing that gaping chasm with fearful eyes set on their target. Just as they had so many times before. Just as they had a few months ago, at the capital city’s northern wall.

The memories of that battle rekindled Michael’s determination.

“This happens every time they come,” Michael continued, undeterred by the disgruntled mutterings of his peers and the way his own hands trembled. “We’re mobilising our full forces against an army of _women_ and _children_!”

“And _farmers_!” someone chimed in. “They’ve got _rakes_!”

“They’re _not_ a threat!” Michael continued unabated. “They’ve not even got a hundred troops with ’em!”

“And how do you know _that_?” Robert said, lip curled. “Did you _count_?”

“ _Look_ at them!”

“All right, that’s enough of that,” Kale said, stepping forward to dispel the tension, his attempt at being the kind mediator too obvious a pantomime. “I understand your concern, mate, I really do, but I’m gonna need you to listen to me, Michael.”

Michael winced at the sound of that name, clenching his jaw to stop himself from correcting him. Michael Smith was the name he was known by. It was the name he had been given.

But it wasn’t the one he wanted.

“I know this doesn’t _feel_ right,” Kale said, and Michael could see the way he inwardly praised himself for his patience, “but we don’t always get to choose our battles, lad. You have a lot of sympathy for people, and that’s great, but in reality, your enemies won’t always be your equal. But if you’re a _true_ soldier, you’ll fight ‘em anyway. You get me?”

“I don’t want to be a soldier,” Michael corrected him, voice firm and shoulders squared. “I want to be a knight. And true knights obey the laws of chivalry.”

“Well chivalry doesn’t apply to the rest of us _soldiers_ -”

“Clearly not! Do you even know what Forbearance _means_?”

Kale’s silence said everything. Michael waited for his fury to rise. He waited for his spiteful words to set off a rage, which would mutate into shouting, into threats, into Kale grabbing him by the scruff of his neck and dangling him off the edge of the roof.

It didn’t come. Instead, he did something far worse.

The fire of Kale’s anger never grew bigger than a dull flame, and with a long exhale, he snuffed it completely. His shoulders sank, his fists uncurled, and his glare faded.

“You know what? Don’t worry about it, Mike,” he said, his voice tinged with a reluctant patience. “You stay here. We’ll take care of it.”

Michael’s brow twitched into a frown. “You wot?”

“We’ll take care of it,” he repeated, firmer this time. “Leon’ll understand, you know he will. Go back to your room, he won’t care-”

“I’m not trying to get out of it!” Michael shouted. “I’m asking you to think about who we’re fighting-”

“I hate to break it to you, Smith, but you don’t get to cherry pick who you’re sent to fight.”

“We should show mercy to those weaker than ourselves-”

“Think about _yourself_ , Mike,” Kale insisted, taking Michael by surprise. “What about _you_ , _your_ survival? Don’t you wanna live so you can, you know… _go home_ one day?”

It took a concerted, physical effort for Michael to not react. He choked down the burning retorts rising in his throat, and his muscles ached with the force it took to restrain himself. It hurt, but he managed it.

“No,” he replied, his voice like water beginning to boil. “This kingdom _is_ my home. And I want to fight for it.”

“Good!” Kale said, not pleased at all. He pointed over Michael’s shoulder at the horizon. “There’s your chance!”

“I’ve fought them before,” Michael said, refusing to back down even as Kale tossed his head back in impatience. “They’re not an army, Kale: they’re women and children and people who have never held a sword in their life! They don’t know what they’re doing-!”

“Careful, Mike,” Kale said, his voice soft, though it was laced with warning. “Keep that up, and people are gonna think you’re some kind of sympathiser.”

“It’s not sympathy, it’s-” Michael shifted, rubbing his head in frustration, unable to resist glancing at the other trainees, to check who was still staring at him. “It’s _sense_! It’s mercy! Have you completely forgotten what Chivalry is-”

“Have _you_ forgotten which side you’re supposed to fighting for, Mike?” Brion cut in, snapping at Michael with a tongue far sharper than Kale’s. “What is the problem? You’re a soldier, right? You took an oath to defend and fight for your Kingdom, right?”

“That doesn’t mean-”

“So I can’t help but find it a bit confusing,” Brion continued as though Michael hadn’t spoken, “that you would have a problem doing what you _swore_ to do. What are you playin’ at, Squinty?”

Kale winced. “Don’t call him that, Bri-”

“I am doing _exactly_ what I swore to do,” Michael retorted, stubbornly refusing to back down. “I’m protecting people who can’t protect themselves-”

“That doesn’t include people trying to _siege your Kingdom_ , mate.”

“There are ways to make them stop that don’t include slaughter-!”

“All right, that’s enough,” Kale said, even-tempered as he stepped between the two. “Brion, you leave him alone. And Michael, that’s enough of that. It’s Leon’s decision to make, not yours, and he’s already started the Call To Arms. Nothing to be done about it now, you understand?”

“But-!”

“Just get yourself down to the armoury,” he said, on his last nerve, “and I won’t tell Leon we had this conversation. Deal?”

Brion was already walking away, and, sensing an end to their squabble, the other men followed him. They were leaving. Michael watched, despairing, wordlessly asking them to stop, as they turned their eyes and ears away from him, disinterested now that the tension was dying down. No one turned his way, because no one would hear him. Even if he were to call out to them, yelling as loud as he dared, Michael was sure his words would go ignored.

Desperation gripped his throat, and he choked out a strangled:

“But-!”

“I’ll see you downstairs,” Kale said as he walked away, eyes kind, looking at Michael like a lost cause. “And steer clear of the front lines, yeah?”

He watched his chance to stop the conflict turn its back on him and walk down he stairs. The men chatted casually with their peers, complaining about how sleepy or hungry or hungover they were. They hoped they could get this over and done with quickly. With enough luck, they might kill enough of them that they might finally be scared off for good.

Michael found his words, already too late.

“All I’m asking is we show them some mercy!” he begged. “For once! _Please_!”

They kept walking, and not one man turned back.


	3. Others Like Me

 

_Serai Kingdom, Brackenshire County, the Eastern Barracks. The armoury._

 

After spending most of the evening in the warehouse, Michael had been looking forward to retiring to the comfort of his bedroom (and the luxury of having a room all to himself was not one he took for granted). So he was not terribly pleased to find himself queueing up outside the armoury.

The cacophony of clanging alarm bells did nothing to improve his mood. Each piercing ring of the pendulum relentlessly striking its metal casing knocked around inside Michael’s head until it ached. The trainees shot the bell-ringer filthy looks as they passed by, who reciprocated with shrugs and sorry expressions. He looked about as delighted to be there as they were. Michael kept his gaze low, to shield himself from the offending noise as he reluctantly shuffled inside the building. But he could only prolong the inevitable for so long. His tactics were ruined by the two taller men he was sandwiched between, pushing and jostling him until he was forced inside.

He stumbled into the armoury, and was simultaneously hit with the terrible realisation of what was about to happen, and a warm sticky wave of male body odour.

He was starting to regret putting in those extra hours chopping wood and battling the training dummy. He had expended all of what remained of his strength and energy, and was now heading into battle with heavy eyelids and a pulled muscle. Adrenaline and the anticipation of danger was all that was keeping him on his feet. That, and the putrid smells that had permanently permeated the armoury’s walls and floors. Decades worth of sweat and rusted metal, of blood and vomit, forever burned into the woodwork, and exacerbated further by the stench of alcohol carried on the trainees’ clothes and upon their breath. He pondered if he should forgo his plate armour and sword in favour of stripping a plank of wood from these old walls. He was sure all it would take was one good whiff of that repulsive rotting stench and the barbarians would retreat immediately, never to return again.

Michael wasn’t sure if attacking a man with smells so putrid they would wilt a flower garden would still fall comfortably under the chivalric rule of Forbearance. He decided that such a repulsive weapon was far more vicious than a sword and shield. Fighting the barbarians in the usual manner would be the more merciful course of action.

But as he looked askance at the other trainees in the room, who were busily equipping themselves with broadswords, crossbows and maces, it was becoming increasingly clear to Michael that he was the only soldier in that room with mercy in mind.

Frustration hung thick in the air, mingling with unease and trepidation, becoming a heavy concoction that weighed on the soldiers’ backs and darkened their brows. Most were men of lower breeding, sons of farmers and smiths, who had fallen for the siren song of the military’s call for volunteers, and its promise of fame and middling fortune. They had arrived starry-eyed and greedy, and had grown bitter and grumpy as reality set in like an icy winter. The chances that they might ever achieve their lofty goals were slim, for the prizes they were promised were awarded only to the ambitious and successful few: mages, tacticians, generals, knights. Most had given up long ago, and were content to settle for a cushy guard position instead. They gathered their equipment without hurry, grumbling to one another about how much sleep this was going to cost them.

The scant few veterans housed at the barracks were easy to identify, for they made no noise. They were the silent few amongst a gaggle of babbling amateurs, slipping through the slim pockets of quietude to deftly avoid being harangued by their peers. Their brows were just as dark, their shoulders just as heavy, but theirs was a different anger. They had no desire to fight either, not if they wouldn't be shown the same recognition given to veteran soldiers of higher birth. Nobles inherited estates, land, servants. These poor bastards had damp-ridden beds and drunken incompetents for roommates.

Only a handful were squires, besides Michael, and they would relish the title, unknowingly rubbing in a teeming handful of salt into their peers’ bitter wounds. They proudly bore their knight’s coat of arms on their chest plate or robe, and armed themselves with similarly decorated blades. Michael knew of a boy, David, who wielded a blade specially forged for him by his knight’s most trusted blacksmith. He would proudly remind everyone of that fact at every available opportunity.

Michael could not brag that his knight had bestowed upon him a gift of similar extravagance, though he too had a sword of his own. One that he refused to substitute for one of the barracks’ own lesser blades, no matter how his teacher chided him for it.

He avoided the many eyes of his peers, deafened himself to their chatter, and busied himself with gathering his plate armour. He had spent many years tempering this skill, but no amount of time or practice could be enough to steel him to the unyielding pressure of their presence. He was always being watched. They thought he couldn't feel it, but he did, every day. His very bones knew that feeling.

He wasn’t the shortest, nor the tallest, nor the most or least physically fit of the trainees. He wouldn’t stand out in a crowd, not by much, if he kept his face hidden. He was dark of hair, but not of skin, like a few of his fellow trainees. They hailed from Saragó and Dobá, in the desert lands. Michael had heard stories of their countries, read about them in books. Like wells of life and water and flowers springing up from arid wastelands, their very existence a marvel forged from magic, their culture and religions were a foreign fascination to the people of Serai.

They viewed Michael’s people in much the same way.

He didn't know a lot about them. He knew next to nothing about his homeland’s culture, its religions, what it even looked like. But he knew for certain that the scant knowledge Seraian scholars had collected into meagre “historical” textbooks were bafflingly misguided. Their understanding and documentation of the kingdom (if it even was a kingdom) was based more on grandiose romanticisms than grounded research and true fact.

Michael knew this to be true, because Sir Romanenkov had told him so.

They were here, once. His people. Visitors who had journeyed to the kingdom from a faraway land. They had left, never to be seen or heard from again.

But Michael remained, and he knew nothing of his kin, of their histories, their heritage, how they came to be there. Why they left.

He spent his days trying not to think about it, to avoid anything that might remind him of it. He buried his nose in books about knights and monarchs and great battles, of how lands were conquered and how mighty beasts were driven to extinction. He spent his days training, working, dreaming. Distracting himself. But that feeling was not so easily evaded, for it had no presence. It was in the absence of things, in the silence that followed him even in crowded rooms; it was insidious, persistent. It invaded his thoughts with the same severity that the armoury’s candle lights seared his vision.

There was not a single man in these barracks, in the county, no doubt in the entire kingdom, who looked the way he did.

Some Seraians regarded him with judgement. _That_ Michael could handle. But what he could not abide were the looks of pity from those who looked upon him not as an outsider, but a tragedy, a child left behind. Abandoned. Unwanted.

Michael knew to his very core that they could not have been more wrong.

He had been given an alias by Sir Romanenkov and Sir Leon, Royal Knight and Captain of the Eastern Barracks respectively, the men responsible for overseeing the trainees’ growth. They said it was for his protection; they could make up excuses for his appearance, but his name was too much of a giveaway.

Michael wished they could have at least invented a less boring alias for him. Then again, he doubted he would prefer anything over his real name. But that just wouldn't do, according to Sir Leon. Even his name - his _true_ name - was different, its syllables unheard of, its meaning unknown.

A small part of him felt grateful for this plan only when he imagined the possible repercussions of using his real name in public. The trainees would have mocked him for it ceaselessly. They already found his “flat” facial features hilarious, and had invented such delightfully witty names such as “table-face” and “squinty”. It was his eyes they liked the least. He had the slimmest eyes of anyone in the barracks. The other trainees said they made him look untrustworthy, like he was always scheming something. Through no fault of his own, the other men grew suspicious of him.

It had taken root when he was still of a young age, and as the years passed, that suspicion grew to become their unshakable definition of Michael, and that definition became a justification for getting him into trouble. And when they themselves got into trouble, they pinned the blame on their favourite dark-haired scapegoat. When he at last grew tired of their antics, Michael made a decision. He would not shy away from his peers, but would endeavour to live up to their less than shining expectations of him. He became that scheming ne’er-do-well that they had always known he would be. His face would never change, he concluded, and his peers would remain forever unreceptive to his attempts at reconciliation, therefore, there was nothing he could do to convince the trainees his intents were innocent. So why fight it?

As a result, his skill in sword fighting was matched only by his prowess for pranking.

Michael hazarded a glance at Kale and his ilk, who were glaring back at him from across the room in mutual disgust. His head was already spilling over with ideas of how he could sabotage their equipment. Nothing that would get them killed on the battlefield, of course. Something that was just enough to irritate them, like snapping a few of Kale’s arrows in half, or filling Robert’s helmet with muck from the barn.

And they’d know exactly who did it too. That was the best part.

He would have liked to have glared at them a little longer, until _they_ would turn away first instead of him. But he knew he'd be running the risk of instigating a fight if he didn't relent soon, so he backed down for now. That quiver full of unbroken arrows Kale had strapped to his back was looking awfully tempting though.

“Michael! Michael! Wait for us!”

Just as his plan was beginning to take form, a shrill voice interrupted his thoughts. He looked up from tightening the straps on his helmet to see a pair of vaguely familiar faces approaching. Two boys, fellow trainees, both similar to him in age, but vastly different in stature. One was short and squirrelly, with unkempt dirty blond hair, his gangly body caught in the awkward space between childhood and adolescence. The other boy had long since passed through that threshold, perhaps with a little too much enthusiasm. He was almost as tall as the adult trainees, and already wider than most of them, with a rounded face topped with an unruly tuft of chestnut hair. With his tanned skin and burlap jacket, he more resembled a sack of potatoes than a trainee. Looking at him, Michael was reminded of another metaphor: “You are what you eat”. Sir Romanenkov had taught him that one too.

Michael tried, but not for the life of him could he remember their names.

“You're gonna go fight ’em, right?” yapped the youngest, in a cadence that made his lack of education clear. “We’re in the same regiment, right? Don't go without us!”

Before Michael had a chance to think of a response (which was unlikely to have been anything polite), the taller boy bumped his sizable fist into Michael’s shoulder. If it weren't for his smile, so wide it pushed deep dimples into his chubby cheeks, Michael may well have retaliated with a punch of his own.

“We heard you was the first one to warn everybody!” said the boy, jolly and well-meaning. Michael lowered the arms he'd raised in defence. “Nice job, Mike!”

“Ow,” Michael replied, a beat too late, not because he was in pain, but to pointedly remark that he hadn't appreciated the shoulder-punch. It went unnoticed as the smaller boy started yapping again.

“You saw their armies, right? How bad is it? How many of them are there?”

“Liam, don’t panic!” his companion said, patting his shoulder to placate him. “I told you, it won’t be that bad. Think of it like target practice!”

The boy scrunched up his face, not the least bit consoled. “We don't practice targets on _real people_ , Morgan!”

Liam’s complaint only made the taller boy laugh. He was looking oddly merry for a soldier about to head into battle. This unsettled Michael, and he wasn't keen on his overly friendly behaviour either. Morgan bumped his shoulder again, and what scant good will he might have felt for him before was gone in an instant.

“Don't mind him, Mike!” he chuckled. “He only got here a few weeks ago. This is his first real fight and he's feelin’ a bit jumpy, y’see. It'd mean a lot to him if you'd let us go along with you. We're the youngest here, so we should stick together, don't you think?”

Morgan’s cheery smile and easygoing manner weren't enough to brighten Michael’s sour expression. He quirked a brow, and shot down Morgan's proposition with a single, rude question:

“ _Who_ are you?”

Morgan’s attempt to put a welcoming arm around Michael’s shoulder was interrupted by a voice barking at them from across the room. It was clipped, haughty, and unmistakable to Michael’s ears.

“Liam! Morgan! What's taking you so long?”

Michael knew him as David Drameh: squire to Sir Leon, orphaned trainee hailing from Saragó, and an all-around infuriating bossy know-it-all. True to form, he was already armoured and ready to go, his specially forged sword hanging from his right side, his custom made shield strapped to his arm. The polished and embellished steel contrasted garishly against his friends’ chipped hand-me-down armour, but Michael refrained from teasing him, as much as his grandeur made him a target for it. They had sparred and trained together many times, and were tied to this day (David kept score). He fought bravely, with drive and vigour, unhindered by his lack of a right forearm. A squire as skilled in combat as David was could afford to show off a little.

But when David noticed who was accompanying his friends, his eyes fixed on Michael and the fire in them was instantly gone. Neither squire looked particularly delighted to see one another.

“Oh for goodness’ sake!” he huffed under his breath, rolling his eyes so he could turn them away from Michael. When he addressed Morgan, he spoke as though the other squire were not there. “You're wasting time! Sir Leon will begin filing soon - you haven't even got your plate mail on!”

He pointed an accusative finger at Liam, who had only a nervous pout to give him in return.

“I don't know how to put it on propply yet,” he mumbled, eyes to the floor. “Morgan said I should ask Michael-”

“ _Morgan_ should know better. Why didn't you do his plate mail for him?” he said, rounding on Morgan again.

“Because then he could meet Mike,” the jolly boy replied, with a kind of patience that could only come with practice. “And I figured, if anyone could help Liam right now, it would be him. Two birds, one stone-”

“There's no time for that!” David interrupted, waving his hand in a dismissive gesture. “You _do_ remember we're about to go into battle?”

“No one’s forgotten that, Dave,” he said with an easy laugh, as though they weren’t about to go into battle.

“Then quit your dallying! Sir Leon will be here any moment. If you don’t hurry up and get ready, you’ll make an embarrassment of yourselves - and me! I want to see you two outside in no less than five minutes, understand?”

 _You two_. Michael didn’t have to think twice about which of them he was referring to. Not that it mattered to him. He had his own armour to prepare, helmet straps to adjust. However, he found himself distracted by Liam’s ill-fitting breast plate and the poor manner in which he had strapped his dagger to his belt.

“Come on, Dave, let it go already,” Morgan sighed, his smile at last faltering. “Mike’s in our regiment; we should at least _try_ to be nice to him. Wouldn't you rather be in the good graces of one of the barracks’ strongest fighters?”

That compliment took both David _and_ Michael by surprise.

“Strongest?” Michael repeated, brows furrowed and top lip curled. “Me?”

“I strongly disagree,” David said, agreeing with Michael and yet simultaneously pretending that he wasn't there.

Morgan quirked a brow, lip curled in confusion. “Eh? Why? Didn’t you hear? He fought to defend the Kingdom walls from barbarians- he sent _ten men_ running for their lives!”

“Then he’s just as barbarous as they are!”

Michael didn’t get a chance to confirm nor deny Morgan’s claim before he was once again interrupted, and it was at that point he gave up. Besides, he couldn't ignore the shoddy state of Liam’s armour any longer.

"Wait,” Morgan said, brow furrowed. “Don't tell me you're still pissed off 'cause of that one time Mike tipped gruel in your porridge?"

David hesitated for a moment too long.

"I-it has nothing to do with that!"

"Oh come on, Dave, you did ask for it-"

" _What_?!"

"No offence, mate, but if you feed mouldy hay to a guy's horse right before mounted archery training, you can't expect him not to get angry-"

"And I suppose you'd be fine with him ruining _your_ breakfast, would you?"

"Better a ruined breakfast than giving someone's horse the runny shits!"

“So says the man who couldn't stop laughing at it!”

The boys were so busy bickering they didn't notice Michael slip past them. Without a word he padded over to Liam and, before the bewildered boy could say anything, he set about adjusting his armour. He could tell Liam hadn't been at the barracks long enough to have armour fitted for him, and was likely having to make do with the smallest pieces of spare armour he could find, but they still didn't fit him. He would have to make do with pulling the straps as tight as they could go. At least then the plate wouldn't bounce up and hit him in the face when he started running. If it fell off in the middle of battle, and if Liam were resourceful enough, he might think to repurpose his breast plate as a shield.

The thought amused Michael, and he let a one-sided smile slip. Liam caught sight of it, and wondered at how it came to be there.

“Let it go, Dave!” Morgan said, distracting Liam before he could ask Michael about his grin. “Can't you swallow your pride just this one time so we can fight with someone who's halfway competent with a sword?”

David crinkled his nose. “That poor excuse for a blade he uses is _not_ a sword!”

For that comment, Michael gave David a rude hand gesture over his shoulder. Liam was the only one who noticed. He let out a squeak of surprised laughter.

“What do you mean “it's not a sword” - it's a long sharp bit of metal attached to a hand-guard and a hilt. Sure looks like a sword to me.”

“Then you need glasses. What kind of self-respecting weapons smith would forge a blade that was blunt on one side?”

Michael knew the answer to that one. Not that he was going to enlighten David with the knowledge.

Job done, he stepped back to check his handiwork. Liam opened his mouth to say something, but was silenced when Michael plopped an oversized helmet onto Liam’s head. He gave it a pat, and it slipped right over his eyes. By the time he had pulled it off, Michael was out of sight.

“Whatever it is,” Morgan said dismissively, “he used that weapon to chase away ten men at the kingdom’s walls. One on ten? Those sound like good odds to me!”

David couldn't argue with those numbers. He huffed a defeated sigh. “Fine. He can handle himself in a fight - but that doesn't mean we can ignore everything else he is!”

“Oh aye?” Morgan challenged, seeing victory. “And what's that then?”

“He's-! He's-!”

“He's leaving!”

Liam’s panicked squeak caught their attention, and they snapped their heads up to look at Michael - or rather, the spot where he had been standing. They caught only a glimpse of the black lacquer sheath strapped to his waist as he passed through the doorway. Morgan started.

“After him, Liam!” he said, barrelling out of the door with his tiny companion hot on his heels and pushing to get past him.

“Wait!” David called after them, finding himself suddenly alone in the armoury. “You can't just-!”

But there were no ears left in the room to hear him. He sighed loudly anyway, forced to acquiesce and follow after his friends.

“If they've made me late for Sir Leon’s arrival, I swear…!” he grumbled under his breath as he finally made it out the door. “They never ever listen to me. They'll live to regret this, I just know it!”

 

———

 

The smoke was closer now. It lifted into the night sky, twisting into the dark clouds until they became as one, and together they chased the moon.

The soldiers paid this rising omen no mind. Now they knew that the smoke was rising from barbarian torches, they felt safe in the knowledge, and were filing into their regiments at an easy pace. They talked amongst themselves, chatting and idling and complaining that they shouldn’t have to fight _this_ late at night, and taking sneaky gulps of ale from the canisters they concealed in their quivers and belts. Sir Leon was yet to arrive, and so long as no one was there to chide them for their nonchalance, the trainees would enjoy the peace for as long as it lasted.

Michael had his eyes set on his regiment. They made themselves difficult to identify with the way they kept meandering back and forth between the fields, where they were supposed to file into line, and the perimeter wall, where a few of them were refusing to share their ale flasks with the sober archers, no matter how they bargained. Michael made his way past the mounted regiment, hoping he might lose his pursuers amongst the restless ponies and their equally bored riders.

“Wait up, Mike! We just wanna help you out!”

Alas, they were persistent. Especially that Morgan boy. Michael kept walking.

“You don’t want to fight _with_ me, you want me to fight _for_ you,” he argued, not turning around. “Go ask someone else to protect you.”

“But Mike!” little Liam piped up. “I’ve not been trainin’ with swords for even three days! Morgan said you’re the best and you could show me how!”

That statement was enough to catch Michael’s attention. It was not his ego that was piqued, but his confusion. He turned, lip curled and brow raised.

“You wot? How am _I_ the best swordsman? There are veteran soldiers stationed at these barracks, men who have fought in _wars_. Why don’t you go ask _them_?”

Morgan made a casual shrug. “Well yeah, we could, but they’re not as…” He gestured with his hand, searching for the words he needed. “ _Approachable_ as you?”

Michael’s brow was low, glaring at him with an expression that was anything but approachable.

“I don’t know what you want,” he said, keeping his tone and temper even, “but I can’t help you. Sorry.”

Liam started squeaking again before he could get away.

“Please, Mike! I just need to know how to hold it propply!”

There was something in Liam’s plea that was too pathetic to ignore. Michael turned back, the bite in his voice replaced by a tiredness.

“I can’t even teach you _that_ much.”

The young boy’s shoulders fell. “How come?”

“It’s like David said.” He patted the pommel of his weapon. “The “poor excuse for a blade” I use isn’t a _real_ sword. You’re better off asking him, mate. He’s not stupid like me.”

“Stupid is right!” David barked, arriving right on cue. “Did you really run all the way back to your quarters just to fetch that thing? There are plenty of weapons in the armoury, but you _still_ insist on using that blunted waste of iron? A _true_ soldier doesn’t waste his time being picky!”

Michael was already walking away, David’s words bouncing off him like arrows from a shield. The squire’s tirades were excellent for two things: providing Michael a chance to practice deafening himself to voices he didn’t want to hear, and raising his temper.

“Be fair, Dave,” said Morgan, in another attempt to be the voice of reason, “everyone has a weapon they prefer over another. Besides, don’t call the kettle black: you wouldn’t be caught dead using anything other than the sword Leon gave you-”

“I’m amazed Sir Leon still lets you use it,” David continued, blatantly ignoring his friend. “The fact that you’ve survived so many battles without a _proper_ weapon at your disposal isn’t a sign of skill, it’s nothing short of a miracle.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Michael replied, not rising to it. “At least someone up _there_ likes me, eh?”

“You’ve had it easy, that’s all it is. I heard the report from the northern wall, you know. Those barbarians were utterly starved after the summer drought. “They practically ran into our spears” - that’s what the footmen said.”

Michael heard that one, and couldn’t hold back a snappy response.

“Of course they did,” he said, nose wrinkled and brow cocked. “It was either that or face the _cannons_ -”

“What I’m saying is,” David interrupted, once again displaying his unrivalled ability for ignoring others, “you have nothing to brag about. You can hardly expect a challenge from such _emancipated_ opponents.”

Michael blinked. His lips and furrowed brows formed tight lines across his face.

“Emaciated,” he said.

“What?”

“You mean “emaciated”-”

“ _That_ _’s what I said._ ”

It was too late. Michael couldn’t stop the giggles rising from his stomach, and nor could David.

“No you didn’t!”

“Yes I did!”

He creased up laughing, having to lean over and away to resist the urge to laugh right in David’s blushing face.

“ _Shut up_!” he snapped, his demands useless to stop the squire’s laughter.

“Ya might wanna look that one up in the _dictation_ , mate,” Michael said, straightening himself. “Oh sorry I meant _dictionary_ -” And he fell right back into a fit of laughter.

His merriment twisted into a yelp when David elbowed him in the side.

“Oi!” Michael barked, and elbowed him right back.

Morgan broke it up before either boy could think to draw their weapons. He stood between them, a full head higher than Michael, his arms holding the trainees apart from one another. They were thick enough to drag them both back home should they cause a scuffle.

“All right, you two, that’s enough!” he said, spoken like a true mediator. “Can we agree to get along just for this one battle? A handful of barbarians may not seem like much to you two, but to Liam and I, who haven’t even been in a scrap for bread before…”

He set his jaw, swallowed, looking at Michael.

“We’re a bit scared, all right?” he admitted. “We already asked around. The veterans told us not to worry, most of the squires are out for themselves, and the rest are all drunk. You’re our age, but you’ve been here most of your life, you know what you’re doing on a battlefield, and…”

He trailed off again, looking about himself, as though checking if anyone was listening.

“Is it true, Mike?” he asked, voice hushed.

Michael frowned. “What?”

“You’ve never killed nobody?”

“No, I haven’t.” Michael’s response was immediate and unashamed.

David clicked his tongue. “Oh he’s one skilled fighter all right.”

He was testing Morgan’s patience. “Mind your tongue, Dave, you ain’t ever killed nobody neither.”

“Here’s what I don’t understand,” David said, unperturbed. “You two are looking for stronger soldiers to defend you out on the battlefield. So why are you so dead set on earning the camaraderie of a squire who has been training for most of his life, but has failed to kill even a single enemy?”

“‘Cause we don’t want to kill anyone neither.”

Michael was listening now.

As his friends continued to stare each other down, Liam turned to Michael, wide pleading eyes blinking up at him.

“Mike?”

He couldn’t say no to that. It would be like kicking a stray puppy. And he liked dogs, and so did his dad. _He_ wouldn’t turn a needy pup away.

“All right, I’ll stick with you,” Michael said, much to Liam and Morgan’s relief. But they missed the mischievous glint in his eyes. “If David can _coordinate_ for five minutes _oh wait sorry I meant cooperate_ -”

Morgan’s arm preemptively raised itself to block David’s punch.

“ _Let me at him_!”

The sounding of trumpets cut through the air, demanding the attention of all within earshot. The moment the self-important music struck David’s ears, he relented his attack, and pounced back into line as if pulled by strings. The soldiers reluctantly shuffled back to their regiment. Michael stood at David’s side, Morgan sidestepped in behind them, and Liam flitted back and forth, not knowing where to turn.

“Wait, wot, I dunno where-”

Michael placed a hand on his head, blinding Liam as his too-big helmet was pushed down over his eyes. Without turning, he dragged the smaller boy around to stand behind him, planting him in place next to Morgan.

“Feet together, back straight,” he whispered to him through his teeth. “Sir Leon’s here.”


	4. Sir Leon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Quick AN: Sorry this took so long! I forgot I finished the first draft months ago and just needed to check it?? Oops! Also, after a recent review of the chapters so far, I’ve decided to use the main character’s real name in the main prose rather than his fake name, as was insinuated in the previous chapters. Sorry for the sudden change! I’ll go back and amend the previous chapters soon. Thanks again for your patience!]

_Serai Kingdom, Brackenshire County, the Eastern Barracks._

The trumpets’ piercing wails were ceased by a single dismissive wave of Sir Leon’s hand. Their music was swallowed up by the night air, and amid the silence, the percussion of horse hoofs and heavy armour heralded the knight’s arrival.  
He marched his horse to stand before his trainees, joined on both sides by mounted soldiers. Mizuki glanced at the gold decoration seared into their breastplates and identified them both as lesser ranking knights. He couldn’t place their exact identities. Not that anyone could, what with those cumbersome helmets concealing their features.  
Mizuki had always thought the Seraian military’s regulation full helms looked a bit stupid. He knew better than to put pride before what was truly important, especially when it came to battle equipment, and while the knights’ helms undoubtedly guarded them well, Mizuki deeply hoped he would never have to wear one. One reason he had set his sights on the lofty goal of serving as a Royal Knight, rather than the more achievable goal of serving in the military, was so he wouldn’t have to ride into battle looking like he was wearing a fortified bucket on his head.  
Sir Leon, by comparison, looked much more stately. Half-cape draped over one shoulder, gilded helmet under one arm, the other resting its elbow on the sword resting upon his hip. The very image of a bold and daring leader, a competent instructor, and a man worthy of the title of veteran knight.  
 _Still though,_  Mizuki thought,  _he has nothing on dad._  
Leon passed his gaze over his assembled troops, his dark brow drawn taught and his lips pressed into a fine line beneath his mustache. Mizuki knew the reason for his disdain. He couldn’t see them, but he could hear the embarrassed chortles of tardy trainees as they shuffled into line. Even now, filing was not complete.   
Mizuki wondered what colourful and inventive punishment Leon would come up with this time.  
“How have any of you gotten this far in your training without learning when to fall in line?” Leon growled in his guttural and distinctly northern tone. “Hurry up! Or you’ll be sleeping in the pigs’ pen tonight!”  
Ah, a classic. So long as the trainees remained mischievous and Sir Leon remained strict, those pigs would never be without human company.  
It took a few more uncomfortable moments for the men to get into place, and several elbow jabs in their sides to silence their laughter. The air and the troops were still, so still that Mizuki could hear the faraway creaking of the opposition’s trebuchets, but the silence remained unfilled. Leon was in no hurry. He had mastered the fine art of intimidation, and knew better than to let a potential uncomfortable silence go to waste. He bided his time, waiting until their cheeky giggles had diminished into awkward coughs. His scathing glare seemed to have burned every ounce of joviality from the air. Only then did he draw a breath and speak.  
“Men! Our kingdom’s enemy has come to threaten our peace once again. Our scouts have confirmed that the Telsan barbarians approach from the south, and they bring with them an army of women, children, and angry farmers.” This comment got a chuckle out of a couple of the trainees. A good sign. At least some of them were listening. “They are armed with much the same equipment we saw during their attack on the kingdom’s northern wall: axes, torches, spears, bows - a few swords here and there, but rakes and hoes are far more common.”  
Two rows behind him, Mizuki heard someone sigh. He could almost feel how they rolled their eyes and shrugged their shoulders. This tiny expression of apathy was enough to provoke another soldier into resuming their gossip, and the muttering began anew.  
Mizuki couldn’t help but feel a bit sorry for Leon. It must have been difficult, having to keep finding new and inventive ways to spur inspiration and determination in such jaded soldiers, and to rally them against an utterly ineffective enemy they had been forced to fight every other month for years on end.   
In his last motivational speech, Leon had spun a tale of how the filthy Telsan barbarians had attacked a Seraian woman: a farmer’s daughter living on the kingdom’s border. The trainees knew this woman as Jo the milkmaid. They knew her because she would ride to the barracks to deliver pots of milk with the help of her brother, but the soldiers couldn’t care less about him. Because Jo was beautiful. She was young, she had a pretty laugh, and she had a propensity for wearing her bodice just a little too low and her skirts just a little too high. The trainees were often too distracted by her to notice how she overcharged them for her delivery services. So when they heard that the filthy Telsans had attacked their fair and innocent Jo, the soldiers were livid, and fought harder than they had ever fought in their lives. Leon was quite disappointed when Jo arrived at the gates not a week later, sprightly and vivacious and completely unaware of his lie. He had arrived too late to inform her of his scheme, and the trainees had not taken kindly to it.   
Now he’d have to come up with something else. Though Leon’s stone-faced expression remained unmoving, Mizuki could see the cogs turning within his mind. He cocked his head, curious to know what eccentric lie he might come up with this time.   
"This is all getting a bit boring now, isn’t it?” he said, his frankness coming as a surprise to Mizuki. “Countless times now they have tried - and failed - to strike at our fair kingdom, and for all the years we have been at war what has it gained them? Nothing. Not an acre. They just can’t seem to figure out that no amount of fury, determination or scorn will ever be enough to dent our great kingdom’s forces. They are like flies throwing themselves at windows. Ah, but we must not be so judgemental, aye? We should treat these poor, lesser people with benevolence. After all, we can’t expect much from a bunch of exiled muttonheads.”  
The trainees laughed. Mizuki did not laugh with them. He heard Morgan and Liam tittering behind him, while David remained stock still, his eyes on his teacher. They watched as Leon’s feigned smile fell from his lips. His eyes were dark, his voice grave.  
"You idiots think we’re impervious to the enemy’s forces because they’re "just” barbarians?“  
The laughter died.  
"All this talk of their untrained soldiers, their lesser weapons, their failed invasions. Your arrogance will be your downfall!”  
Leon bellowed at the wall guards, ordering them to lower the drawbridge. It took all their strength to operate the machinery, heaving at levers almost as tall as they were to set the gargantuan wheels and chains in motion. Though they stood on the opposite end of the pathway, Mizuki had to wince to bear the rusty squealing cries of the wall’s inner mechanisms as they fought to raise the old and reluctant portcullis. The falling drawbridge revealed a familiar scene: the night sky split apart by smoke and flame, and the once muffled sound of marching grew louder and louder, nearer and nearer.   
Worst of all was the creaking, the groaning wood, the cranking iron, none of which were coming from their own walls.  
“You at least noticed the trebuchets they bring with them, yes? Or perhaps you heard about them in rumours? I know how much you lot love to gossip.”  
There was no response, not even a mutter. All eyes were on the bridge.  
“How can you remain so complacent? Are you not afraid? Are you so sure of victory that failure is not even a possibility in your minds? Look again!”  
Leon pointed through the gap in the wall, not with his finger, but his drawn sword: a hefty gilded thing engraved with the Seraian insignia. Mizuki tried not to smile. His teacher had quite a flare for dramatics. However, the thing he was pointing at certainly called for alarm, he would give him that. It was still only a speck in the far distance, like a golden star that has gotten lost in the night, but the soldiers would recognise their kingdom’s sigil anywhere.  
“You don’t recognise your own Kingdom’s weapon?! Those trebuchets bear the Seraian insignia! Or are you all so blind drunk you didn’t notice?!”  
 _That_ woke them up. Mizuki, eyes set on the glint of the trebuchets’ insignias, listened as an uneasiness rose around him, the disturbed voices of his fellows chattering in confused hysterics. Even Liam and Morgan were having a hard time keeping still.  
“It’s ours?” Morgan asked, leaning over Michael’s head to get a better look. “Did they steal it?”  
“Of course they did, how else would they get it?” David snapped, not taking his wide eyes off the barbarian’s raging torch fire.  
“But how? I hear what Leon’s saying but they wouldn’t have a chance of stealing something like that. They just don’t have the manpower.”  
“Don’t let them catch you unawares!” Leon’s voice boomed over the trainees’ rising chatter. “It’s likely those aren’t the only armaments they have with them. Following the attack on the kingdom’s walls, our military stationed at Telsa has reported several cases of captives making off with our supplies.”  
Mizuki knew what Leon was going to say next.   
“They could do it if they had Magic Stones,” he whispered to David.  
The air around the boys went still. Even as Mizuki kept his eyes on his captain he could feel their horrified stares weighing on him.  
“What?” David hissed.  
“They’re rogues, not an army,” he explained. “They don’t obey the same rules we do. The Telsans had Stones with them when they attacked the North kingdom wall; wouldn’t be surprised if this lot have Stones with them too.”  
Leon’s voice boomed. “They’ve taken our soldiers’ armour, weaponry, ammunition, rations, water reserves, and a few light-fingered little buggers have made off with their Magic Stones.”  
Stillness. Leon’s warning had drained the air of its merry energy, leaving only apprehension in its wake.  
“There you go,” Mizuki said.  
“What?!” David snapped again, his voice joining the rising chorus of frightened chatter.  
Behind them, Liam squeaked through the fingers covering his face. “Oh my giddy aunt!”  
Morgan, however, was laughing. It wasn’t uncommon for Morgan to laugh, but never in his life had Mizuki heard him make such a high-pitched titter.  
“Well! Glad we’ve got you on our side, mate!” Morgan punctuated his sentence with yet another friendly, if not a little half-hearted, elbow to Michael’s arm.   
He almost retaliated, but his fist stopped before it could make contact. What did Morgan mean by that?  
Leon’s soldiers called for silence. Their thunderous shouts were only just loud enough to carry over the flustered trainees’ cacophonous chatter and suffocate it. Once he was sure he would be heard, the knight continued his speech.  
“They’re as crafty as they are desperate,” he said. “Not one of them is trained in the Magical Arts nor do they have any understanding of the Seraian laws of magical conduct.” He quirked a brow. “Not that it ever stopped them before. The casting we saw from them at the north kingdom wall was desperate and volatile. Though most of their spells were utterly ineffective–”  
Hearing this, Liam perked up. “Oh good!”  
“They took out a guard tower with just one Earth spell.”  
Liam wilted. “Oh no.”  
“We won’t be taking any chances. All archers are to man the wall and towers and focus the enemy’s siege weapons. Mounted units, you will fight off the foot soldiers – and for goodness’ sake, keep away from their spearmen!”  
David, unconsoled by Leon’s plan of action, shook his head. “We can’t defend ourselves against magic!”   
“Hope you know how to use a shield,” Mizuki said, adjusting his own.  
“ _I_  don’t!” cried Liam.  
“Foot soldiers!”  
That meant them. Every pair of eyes in the boys’ regimen was fixed on their captain. They were the kindling, he was the fire, and his words were the tinder that was failing to strike a light.  
“Fend off their swordsmen and hinder their advance. If you can strike at their mounts, do so: their horses are not trained for battle and will likely bolt at the first provocation. And if any of you spot a mage, incapacitate them immediately. Don’t let a single one of them through these gates. Understood?”  
“Aye, sir!” the soldiers agreed, though their battlecry lacked even a spark of the fire Leon had tried to ignite.  
Mizuki heard a mumbling coming from behind him. Liam tapped him on the soldier.   
“Wait,” he stammered, “did he say "decapitate” them?“  
"No, mate,” Morgan chuckled. “Incapacitate.” He nudged David’s back. “Write that one down, Dave.”  
“Oh, be quiet!” he snapped, clearly in no mood for Morgan’s jokes. “How can you be so cheerful at a time like this?”  
“Sorry, friend,” Morgan said with a shrug. “I just think laughin’s better'n cryin’.”  
“Laughter won’t bring you back from this battle alive, dimwit.” David let out the rest of his anxious vitriol in a shuddering sigh. “Sir Leon is right. We can’t hope to beat mages without any magic of our own. Our best option is to incapacitate them and bring them back for questioning–”  
“I still don’t understand what that means!” Liam said.  
David clicked his tongue and looked away.   
“How long did you say you’ve been here?” Mizuki asked, brow quirked.  
Liam lowered his head, sheepish, and his helmet fell onto the bridge of his nose. “Two weeks…” he admitted, pushing the helmet back up.  
Mizuki resisted the urge to sigh. The hypocrisy was becoming harder to ignore. Seraians loved to criticise the Telsan barbarians for sinking so low as to send mothers and their children into battle. Mizuki wondered how they would blush to know that the barbarian infants were doing battle with their own kingdom’s children.  
“It means ‘make them unable to fight’,” he explained. “You don’t have to kill them.”  
Liam’s eyes lit up. “Oh! Oh, good!  _In-ca-paci-tate_. That’s a good word, I like that word.”  
Mizuki chuckled. “Yeah. Me too.”  
David hushed them. “I can’t hear Sir Leon!”  
He faced front, watching his knight with rapt attention, and didn’t notice how Mizuki mockingly mimicked him while his back was turned. Morgan and Liam stifled their snickers behind their hands.  
“Treat the barbarians as you would any other worthy opponent,” their teacher said. “Their strength may be inferior to ours but their resolve is just as great. Don’t let your guard down! Complacency will get you killed!”  
Leon looked out over his men. All were stood stock still; not one dared to disobey his authority. Even the drunks had forced themselves to stop swaying.   
When his gaze reached Mizuki’s group, he stopped. Stared. David straightened, shoulders straight and chin raised too high. His friends did the same, Liam with a little too much gusto, as he knocked his helmet down onto his nose again. It wasn’t clear from this distance who Leon was looking at exactly. Mizuki hoped it wasn’t him, but stared back nonetheless, waiting for him to stop pausing for dramatic effect and just get on with it.   
“That being said,” he said, and Mizuki could have sworn he saw his features soften, “we will only use as much force as is necessary in this battle. It would be a waste of resources otherwise. Cannons, you will focus fire only on the trebuchets. Once they are destroyed, you will cease fire immediately.”  
This disturbed the crowd’s obedient silence. The men shared concerned glances, noses wrinkled in confusion, and their murmurings began anew, now dismayed and utterly sober. Around the boys the voices grew in volume and urgency, asking “What did he say?”; “Why would we hold back when we’re under attack?”, and “I know they’re just barbs, but that’s stupid!”  
Another warning shout from Leon’s knights silenced the crowd.  
“I suggest you lot act accordingly!” he said. “And I don’t want to hear any more complaints! Remember, you fight for the honour of your Kingdom. Have faith in your King! Your heritage gives you strength! We fight for the glory of our beloved Serai Kingdom!”  
The soldiers cheered in agreement. Mizuki quirked a brow. “S'a bit much, innit?”  
“Hold your tongue!” David hissed.  
Leon tugged on his horse’s reigns. His speech was done.  
“Let’s send these farmers back home where they belong. Ready men!”  
“Aye, sir!” The soldiers’ raucous shouts of agreement echoed across the fields. Liam copied them, a moment too late.   
“March!”  
The clanking of metal plates and the pounding of boots stomping the earth resounded across the field as the sobered soldiers journeyed to the gates. Morgan and Liam, still untrained in how to properly march, followed David and Mizuki’s example, watching them closely and copying their movements. Morgan swung his arms too widely and walked with too much spring in his step, and Liam squeaked apologies every time he accidentally bumped into Mizuki’s shoulders. David’s demands that Morgan stop kicking the backs of his heels almost distracted Mizuki from the sound of his name being called.   
Startled, he searched for the source of the voice, and found Sir Leon looking back at him.  
He nodded toward the wall. “Follow me.”  
Mizuki watched the knight pull on his horse’s reins and lead the way, not looking back to see if his student was following behind. He could feel his friend’s gazes boring a hole into the back of his neck as they waited to see what he would do. Mizuki left before David could make comment, following his captain to the edge of the barracks.  
Mizuki fell out of step as he hurried after Leon, and even as his captain dismounted his horse, he did not salute him. He knew he didn’t have to. Leon wouldn’t correct him.   
From this distance, even under the shadow cast by the walls, he could see Leon’s features clearly. Peeking out from beneath his armour and the bushel of coarse red hair smothering his lower jaw was a patchwork of scars. Mizuki had seen them in full once, during a particularly hot summer when Leon had gone shirtless during a sparring lesson. He looked like he had been torn asunder by a hail storm of swords and knives, and sewed back together by his own wounds. Each one was significant to him, each one had a story to tell. His scars were so great in number, and all of equal significance, they had no beginning and no end. So no one bothered to ask. They wouldn’t know where to start.  
“Yes, sir?” he asked.  
Leon passed a critical eye up and down his armour. Mizuki was certain that everything was in its proper place, just as his knight had instructed him to wear it. Still, Leon’s brow drew together in disapproval. With a firm grip he tugged at the plates on Mizuki’s chest and arms, and adjusted several straps that didn’t need adjusting. Mizuki had to chew on the inside of his mouth to stop himself from rolling his eyes.  
“Was that all, sir?”  
The knight harumphed, and nodded his head at the weapon strapped to Mizuki’s waist.  
“You sure about that choice of sword, Michael?”  
“As always, sir,” he said, not missing a beat.   
Leon searched his pupil’s eyes for doubt, finding none. With a sharp chuckle, his moustache twisted into a smirk.  
“Well be sure to keep your shield just as close,” he said. “You heard what I said about their Magic Stones, aye?”  
“I did, sir.”  
“Good.”  
Mizuki blinked, waiting for Leon to let him go. He didn’t. He leaned forward conspiratorially, speaking in hushed, serious tones.  
“And try not to set off any magic spells of your own, aye?”  
The image of bright sparks breaking forth from his sword and colliding with a training dummy flooded Mizuki’s thoughts. He shifted on the spot.  
“With all due respect, sir,” Mizuki growled, “that was a year ago. And an accident. I don’t even have a Stone, I don’t know how–”  
“Let’s hope so, son.”  
Mizuki frowned. He didn’t like Leon’s patronising tone.  
“I’m not lying, sir-”  
“I know that. You wouldn’t. I only hope what you say is true.”  
Mizuki’s expression creased up in confusion. Leon smiled, and it was kindly.  
“Food for thought.” He nodded at the marching soldiers. “Off you go.”  
Mizuki considered pressing Leon for answers, but he knew Leon well enough to know he wouldn’t give him any. Without another word, he left to catch up to his regiment.   
“And stay safe, you hear?” Leon’s called after him. “You and your friends.”  
He couldn’t ignore  _that_.  
“I barely know them!” he retorted.  
“Back in line, Michael!”  
He begrudgingly obeyed, turning away before Leon could hear him mutter under his breath.   
“You could at least use my real name,  _sir_ …”  
He had to jog to catch up to his regiment. They had already passed through the gate, over the drawbridge, and were marching down the hill. He slipped back into file as discreetly as he could, which was not at all, as he was followed by every pair of curious eyes that could get a glimpse of him. David was ready for him the moment he got back in line.  
“I saw that,” he snapped, leaning in close. “What was that? What did you do?”  
Mizuki leaned away, as though repulsed by the stench of David’s suspicion. “Leave it, David!”  
“Was he checking up on you?” Morgan asked, equally as eager to invade Mizuki’s personal space. “Aren’t you special!”  
“He did something wrong, I know he did!”  
“Are you gonna get in trouble, Mike?” Liam asked, peering up at him.  
“Nah, he’s Leon’s golden boy!” Morgan reassured him, slapping Mizuki’s shoulder with a congratulatory palm so hefty it almost knocked him over. “He wouldn’t let anything happen to him.”  
“Really?! How did you get him to like you, Mike? He’s scary!”  
“Oh stop it, it’ll go to his head,” David said, marching with his nose stuck firmly upward. “Leon’s only got his eye on him because he’s such a damn troublemaker.”  
“Oi, what’s that on your face, Dave?” Morgan grinned, pointing at David’s cheek. “You’re going green!”  
“What? There’s nothing- Shut up!” There wasn’t a speck of green on David’s face, but there was a whole lot of red.   
Morgan and Liam’s giggling was infectious, and Mizuki couldn’t help but join in. He didn’t know how Morgan managed to keep in step and keep up the banter at the same time. He was almost impressed. For just a few moments, the air felt light again, like they were inside a bubble that shielded them from reality.  
Until the trumpets sounded.  
The soldiers came to an immediate halt. Mizuki narrowly avoided butting heads with the soldier in front of him. Liam wasn’t quite so quick and smacked right into his back.  
“Sorry!” he said, rubbing his nose.  
Mizuki didn’t respond. He was struck by the weight of the silence, how heavily it pulled at his legs and firmly rooted him to the ground. Beyond the walls the winds, unfettered by walls or by trees, blew stronger and colder. It cut through his armour and sliced over his skin, robbing the colour and smiles from the soldiers’ faces and snatching every last scrap of merriment from the air.    
The army was drawing near.


End file.
